


Samantha of Port Charles

by telliefan (captainamergirl)



Category: General Hospital
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 23:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6880561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/telliefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam vowed to hate Jason forever but her heart wouldn't let her keep that promise. AU Jasam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has just 3 parts and is based on my all-time favorite book series EVER, the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery.

**Part 1**  
  
"Sam, get up. _Now_. You're going to be late," Alexis Davis-Lansing said, walking into her adoptive daughter's room for what seemed like the tenth time already this morning. Sam just groaned in reply and burrowed deeper under her covers. "Sam, come on. You used to like school."  
  
Sam groaned again from under the covers and pulled them tighter around her tiny frame, saying nothing. She was pouting; that much was obvious.  
  
"Sam," Alexis said, her voice imploring. When Sam yet again refused to get up, Alexis finally in her frustration, ripped the covers from off of Sam.  
  
Sam screeched in horror and reached for them again but Alexis had a tight grip on the duvet and sheets and tossed them in the corner of the room, out of reach. "Come on, Sam, school starts in a mere thirty-five minutes. You've got to get ready and have breakfast. Though I suppose you'll have to do with Pop-Tarts this morning."  
  
Sam jumped up to a sitting position in bed and covered her head. "I am not going, Alexis," Sam snapped. "And you can't make me!"  
  
"Why are you so adamant about not going to school?"  
  
Sam moved her hands aside from her head and tugged at the frayed, super short and choppy strands of her once beautiful raven black hair. "Are you kidding me, Alexis?!" she snapped. "Have you gone blind? Look at me. My hair is hideous. Everyone is going to know why that you took a weed-whacker to it!"  
  
Alexis shook her head. "God, you are so impertinent," she said. "But that said, it doesn't look half bad. We can style it and gell it and -"  
  
"And I'll still look like someone who got into a fight with the lawnmower," Sam moaned. "I am not going. I don't even need school. I am fourteen now. I can easily strike out on my own."  
  
Alexis clucked her tongue. "Not likely."  
  
"Yes, I can. I can become a con woman and learn cheap card tricks and such and then one day I'll be old enough to marry and I'll marry five or so really rich men -"  
  
Alexis sighed. "That will never happen."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because I won't let it. Ric and I adopted you and we promised to raise you up correctly so-"  
  
"So nothing!" Sam spat. "I am not going. All the kids will know I got head lice from that damn Lizzie Webber and they'll tease me about it forever."  
  
"They can't know the reason," Alexis said and waved her hand dismissively. "Now get out of bed or I promise I'll do something you don't like."  
  
"Like what? You can't do anything to me," Sam challenged Alexis.  
  
"I can so. How does a bucket of ice cold water poured all over you sound? It's only fifty degrees out today."  
  
Sam shook her head. "I am talking to my social worker!"  
  
"You can do that _after_ school," Alexis said triumphantly. "Now get up and we'll find you a really beautiful hat to wear."  
  
Sam rolled her eyes but finally climbed out of bed. She could still fight after all; she had grown up on the street before the Lansings adopted her. She would just slug anyone who dared talk trash about her or tease her. Besides, everyone knew she could beat anyone down to the ground and no one would dare take her on.  
  
Maybe this day wouldn't be so horrible after all...  
  
XoXoXo  
  
The day turned out to be even more horrible than she could have imagined. The minute she walked onto the Port Charles Junior High School campus, everyone started staring, pointing, and whispering. Even with a Mets baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, she still stuck out like a big sore thumb. She had believed life could not possibly get any worse but it had. It definitely had.  
  
Still somehow she made it to homeroom without having to slug anyone. No one had really said anything even if there were whispers all over, curious and even gloating ones. Sam McCall was beautiful no more. That and her ability to kick some serious ass on the school yard had been her best claims to fame and now she felt helpless and pathetic. Now she was just Sam with the dead crackwhore birth mother and the absentee father who had fortunately been adopted by the kindly, childless Lansings. She was a joke - just like one of those pathetic orphaned characters in one of the too-fat books her English teacher Ms. Cuthbert made her read.  
  
Sam had just slipped into her seat when her best friend Robin Scorpio moved over to her, sitting down beside her. "Hey, Sam," Robin said, pointedly avoiding looking at Sam's New York Mets baseball cap and pretending not to notice the frayed, loose hairs sticking out like stiff straw from the edges of the backwards cap. "How are you?"  
  
"How do you think, Robin?" Sam snapped. "Everyone is pointing and staring. They all know I had head lice and that's why I was out of school for three days and why I now have a haircut even Carrot-top would be ashamed of!"  
  
"Sam, first of all you're being too sensitive and even vain. Plus, no one knows why you were gone. I didn't even know why you were gone because you avoided my calls and texts while you were away. Second of all, your hair doesn't look half bad from what I can tell and when it grows out a bit, it will be so cute."  
  
_"When,"_ Sam moaned. "Is it too much to hope though that that Jason _Quarterbrain_ is absent till it does grow out? I just know he will make my life a living hell over this."  
  
"He only does it because he likes you, Sam," Robin said. "According to our wizened, mutual friend Brenda, guys our age are super immature and they only know how to get attention one way - by being total - excuse my language - asshats."  
  
"Jason _Quarterbrain_ is the biggest asshat there is, Robin! And if he liked me I wouldn't care because he's not my type."  
  
"Oh please, Sam," Robin said. "Have you looked at the guy lately? He's _everyone's_ type!"  
  
"Not mine," Sam said and then chanced a look around the room. So far, so good. Jason was nowhere in sight. _Good. Maybe he has gotten mono or some infectious skin-eating virus,_ Sam thought hopefully.  
  
She was just turning back to face the front of the classroom - pointedly ignoring all the gawking being directed at her - when she spotted Jason Quartermaine himself saunter into the classroom like he owned it. She groaned and looked at Robin. "Trouble at five o'clock," she murmured and clenched her fists in preparation for the ass kicking she would unleash on Jason if he even so much looked at her cross-eyed.  
  
To her horror, Jason took the seat behind her even though it wasn't his to claim, and she heard him laugh to himself as his eyes settled on her back, burning a whole right between her brain hemispheres. "Hey, Sammy, nice hat," he said with a chuckle. "The Mets huh? I am more of a Yankees fan myself."  
  
Sam ignored him though she clenched her fists still tighter. Robin offered her a reassuring smile but it only made Sam feel angrier somehow. Damn that Jason. If he didn't shut his trap, he was going to get it!  
  
"Hey, Sam," Jason said again and she could hear him shifting in his seat and moving closer to her. She could even feel his hot breathe on her collarbone. "Come on, I want to see your hat. Come on, Sam, I know you can hear me. Let me see it."  
  
Sam still pretended to ignore him but she heard Jason move out of his chair and then before she could stop him, he was reaching for her hat and yanking it off her head. He chuckled. "Got in a fight with a pair of shears huh, Sammy?"  
  
Sam was horrified. Now everyone could see what she had been trying so hard to hide. Mocking laughter filled the air around her. In response, she immediately sprung from her chair and swung around so fast Jason didn't see it coming. She punched him as hard as she could in the stomach. "You jerk, you mean, spiteful asshole!" Sam screamed. "I hope you choke on your own crap!"  
  
Mr. Pyle was shooting out of his own seat then and screaming at Sam to come to the front of the room. "You're going to the principal, young lady," he said. "I see a long suspension in your future. How dare you hit our school's most esteemed student?"  
  
Sam snarled back, "Because he's a jackass and he asked for it!"  
  
"Go to the principal's office, Sam," Mr. Pyle said. "I don't want ill-behaved, rotten to the core students like you darkening my classroom door ever again."  
  
Sam nodded. "Fine. I wouldn't even bother, you old coot," she snapped back and then was zipping past Jason who was staring at her in wide-eyed shock. She grabbed her hat and raced towards the door even as she heard him call after her in an imploring voice.  
  
Sam McCall would never forgive Jason Quartermaine for what he had done today.  _Never, ever_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**  
  
 ** _Ten Years Later..._**  
  
Sam had left Port Charles without looking back the moment she turned eighteen. She didn't even finish her last semester of high school she was so desperate to get away from the small-town. She had always done everything unconventionally and there was nothing new about that. Not at all. She had eked out a fairly decent living doing some reconnaissance work for a large corporate giant in New York City. Her adoptive parents had pestered her again and again about coming back home to visit them because whenever they did get together, it had been on Sam's terms and on her turf in the big city. Now she was seriously regretting those decisions and wondering why she had wanted to be away from Port Charles so badly; why she hadn't been willing to visit her adoptive parents even once in this town.  
  
Now she stood in the pouring rain with Alexis as Father Coates read from the good book, as it was called. Sam had never been one for religion and now that whoever supposedly lived upstairs had seen it fit to cut down her adoptive father with a heart attack in the prime of his life ... well, she really wanted nothing to do with him.  
  
Sam had insisted in not having an umbrella for whatever reason she couldn't remember now and that was now just another thing she was regretting as she was now officially soaked to the bone. She had never felt colder than she was right now. It was the kind of cold that penetrated past her bones and right into her heart. For all of their faults, she had loved Alexis and Ric and now he was gone before he truly ever knew what he had meant to her.  
  
Sam felt the attentive, watchful eyes of many but none pierced her more than the cobalt blue ones watching her from the other side of the open grave. She avoided looking at him but she could feel him watching her and she wondered why he was here. She didn't even think he had known Ric all that well.   
  
Sam finally looked up once and it was while Father Coates threw a handful of something on the grave, said a prayer, and then it was over. Sam felt tears roll down her cheeks to match the rain and she grasped her mom's hand tighter in hers. Alexis sniffled quietly and then together, they watched the coffin containing half of Sam's world lowered into the ground.  
  
And then it was done and Alexis was kissing Sam's forehead and moving over to thank the funeral-goers for braving the appropriately stormy elements to be there at the cemetery on this crappy day. Sam hovered off to the side, saying nothing even as people passed by and murmured their sympathies. She happened to feel his presence approaching her then though and she stiffened even more.  
  
"Sam," he whispered as he came to stop about ten inches in front of her. "I'm -"  
  
Sam shook her head. "Don't say you're sorry, Jason," she said. "Ric lived a long life. It's more than most people ever get," she said bitterly and then she was turning and hurrying to the safety of her car.  
  
She climbed into the driver's seat and held back more tears as she waited for Alexis. She happened to look once and see Jason's retreating back through the pouring rain. She felt a brief flash of remorse but told herself, he wouldn't care. Last she had heard anyway he was dating some blonde named Courtney and Sam was sure he had only tried to reach out to her because he felt sorry for her. Well she didn't want or appreciate his pity at all.  
  
Alexis finally arrived, snapped her umbrella shut, and then shaking some of the water from it (which was useless because more rain just kept coming down), she climbed into the car. "Well..." Alexis said.  
  
"Yeah ..." Sam said, not quite knowing what to say to assuage her mother's grief. She didn't even begin to know where to start when she couldn't make sense of her own feelings right now.  
  
"I saw you and Jason Quartermaine talking," Alexis said as Sam started the engine.  
  
"Yeah ..." Sam said again. She really didn't want to have this conversation again.  
  
"You know, Sam, I think it's safe to say he still loves you," Alexis said.  
  
Sam pulled the car away from the curb and cursed under her breath. "Not that again."  
  
"Sam..."  
  
"Mom, no offense, but we have a billion things to do before the wake this afternoon. Wakes are completely pointless in my opinion but I'm doing this for you."  
  
Alexis sighed. "Sam ..."  
  
"It's true. We all stand around getting huge on a million different types of casseroles the neighbors won't stop bringing over and we talk about the deceased person as if they were still alive and could hear us."  
  
"Why are you so cynical?" Alexis asked. "Please don't tell me you got that from me."  
  
"No probably from my crackwhore birth mom," Sam snapped. She heard Alexis hiss out a breath but Alexis said nothing.  
  
Sam felt instantly badly. "Sorry, Mom. Things aren't... Things are so hard right now."  
  
"I know but I can't help but feel there's more going on than Ric's death. That you're in pain about something else."  
  
"Just guilt, Alexis. Guilt that I spent the past ten years making you and Ric chase me all over while I was trying to find happiness with guys who normally I wouldn't look twice at but stayed too long with because they had the right credentials."  
  
"I'm sorry, Sam."  
  
"Don't pity me. Please. I told Jason not to feel sorry for me and I definitely don't want you to do it."  
  
"Sam -"  
  
"Alexis, please," Sam said again.  
  
"Alright, Sam. For now I'll drop it but eventually you're going to have to figure out why you keep running from your own happiness."  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Later, the wake was about to begin and Sam was scurrying around trying to help her mom do last minute things. Alexis, being Alexis, wanted everything to be properly done and orderly even if her spouse of twenty years wasn't there to see it. Sam noticed Alexis was remaining stoic and not showing her grief and Sam was trying to do the same.  
  
The doorbell suddenly rang and Sam said, "Ah. Our first victim has arrived."  
  
Alexis shook her head. "You're so morbid, Sam," she said and then slipped out of the room because the timer was dinging on one of those damn casseroles they had too many of.  
  
Sam smoothed down her black skirt and shirt, trying her best to look presentable, if only for Alexis's sake. She then moved to the door and opened it. She started to greet the person but her words died on her lips.   
  
"Sam, I - I honestly didn't come to cause trouble," Jason said and then handed her a beautiful vase full of roses. "My grandmother asked me to bring these to your mom. She couldn't come because she's wheelchair bound now and her arthritis acts up in bad weather and -"  
  
Sam nodded. "Well ... thank you, Jason."  
  
"Anything for you, Sam ... and your mom too, of course," he said quietly and then turned and walked off down the path of the Lakehouse as Sam watched him go with a decided ache in her heart.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Sam had resolved to stay in Port Charles for at least a few weeks to help Alexis - even as efficient and competent as she was - restart her life. Alexis had spent half of her life loving Ric and his death had been a blow to her even if she tried to visibly restrain her grief.  
  
Sam was sitting in the living room by the fire reading over some financial documents for Alexis when her mom approached her. "Hello, Sam," she said.  
  
Sam looked up and patted the seat on the sofa next to her. "Hey, Mom," she said. Alexis dropped down beside her and looked at the fire for a long moment, watched the flickering flames dance in the hearth. "What's on your mind, Mom?"  
  
Alexis sighed. "I feel like I'm walking around in a haze. I don't know when I will kick it either. I know Ric, as stubborn and high and mighty as he was sometimes, wouldn't want me hanging around the Lakehouse feeling sorry for myself."  
  
"He would understand, Alexis. You're grieving."  
  
"Yes, I know, but they say you should be thankful for the time you had with them. And we had a twenty-year-long marriage. Of course we had rocky times - some very rocky times - but we loved each other. And I miss him. I really miss the big lug," Alexis sniffed.  
  
Sam reached out and stroked her mother's hair softly. "I suppose it doesn't help that we just hang around the Lakehouse all day. It's so dark and depressing -- deserted too."  
  
"Yes it is," Alexis said as a single tear tracked down her cheek. "It had light in it before though."  
  
"Before Ric died?"  
  
"Yes. And before you left home for good," Alexis said. She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. "But you being here now ... that's just what I need."  
  
Sam nodded. "You know I have to go back to the city soon. I mean, I have so much work to catch up on there and -"  
  
"I know, Sam," Alexis said. "And I completely understand. It's just ... I can't help but think you're running again."  
  
Sam groaned. "Not this pep talk stuff again, please. No Oprah moments."  
  
Alexis sighed. "Do me a favor then."  
  
"Sure," Sam said. "What is it?"  
  
"Tomorrow lets air out this whole place and redecorate it with things that will reflect some light when we actually pull open the curtains... Then this weekend, we can have a big picnic on the lake and invite the whole town."  
  
"The 'whole' town?" Sam gulped.  
  
Alexis nodded. "Yes, Sam. Do this for me, okay? Do it for you too. We need to let the light back in our lives and surrounding ourselves with people who we know and love -- that's the best way I can think of. And I'll even buy you your own gallon of rocky road ice-cream as a bribe."  
  
"Gallon?" Sam chuckled in spite of herself. "Do you want me to get really, really fat?"  
  
"A pint then."  
  
"That'll work," Sam said. "I remember the first time you and I had a fight after you brought me home and how we settled our disagreement over rocky road because you knew I had never really had a chance to eat ice-cream growing up in foster homes ... And it's been my favorite food - dessert or otherwise - ever since."  
  
Alexis nodded. "I remember that, Sam. It sure put a smile on your face. I want to see your beautiful grin again really soon."  
  
A tear moved down Sam's cheek. "You will. I promise you will."


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**  
  
During the course of the rest of that week, Sam helped Alexis ready the house and grounds for the impending picnic on the lake. Alexis had never been the fanciful type but Sam thought Alexis was making the effort to please Sam in any way she could, maybe hoping Sam would stick around a bit longer without having to actually ask Sam to stay. Sam knew she couldn't possibly do that but she had resolved that during the picnic, she would smile and be kind and attentive to everyone.  
  
The day of the picnic the sun blazed brightly overhead. Sam had heard that rain was forecast for later in the evening but she hoped for Alexis's sake it would stay sunshiny-bright until everyone had gone home.  
  
The picnic was in full-swing when Sam spotted Jason walk onto the grounds. Her breath involuntarily hitched in her throat as his eyes sought out hers and held for a moment before Sam looked away. She didn't know why she did that, couldn't meet Jason's eyes or even hang around him. But it had always been that way for as long as she could remember now.  
  
Sam spent the day avoiding Jason as best as she could while Alexis occasionally skirted by her, whispering "be friendly" or "be social" on her way to check on her guests. Finally as the picnic was winding down, Sam walked into the kitchen to find Alexis pulling a pint of rocky road out of the fridge. Alexis held it out to Sam. "You earned that for keeping your temper mostly in check. Even when Liz Webber tried to engage you in a fight. I guess you've matured. In the past, you would have slugged that self-righteous girl."  
  
Sam smiled. "Yeah. I wanted to but I wouldn't embarrass you, not for the world." Sam moved over and accepted the pint of ice-cream and a spoon. "I'll go to the gazebo down the lane so I don't have to share. Everyone else got vanilla ice-cream with their brownies. I get this. Thanks, Mom."  
  
Alexis smiled and nodded. "Of course, Sam, I love you."  
  
"I love you too," Sam said and then walked out the backdoor and down the lane to the gazebo.  
  
She was just going up the steps when she noticed she wasn't alone. Jason Quartermaine was sitting inside, seeming to be watching the sky when he looked up and spotted her. "Sam..."  
  
"Hey," Sam said. "I'm sorry to bother you. I will just be going now."  
  
Just then a streak of lightening lit the darkening sky and the rain the channel 7 newsgirl had promised began to fall.  
  
"You'll get drenched," Jason said.   
  
"A little rain never hurt anyone," Sam said and realized this was the most she had spoken to him in so many years. "I can eat my ice cream somewhere else."  
  
Jason offered her a thin smile. "We got vanilla but you held out for the chocolate," he said. "I admire that."  
  
Sam offered a weak smile in return. "T-thanks." She started to back down the steps but Jason stopped her with the sad expression in his azure eyes.  
  
"Sam, why?"  
  
"Why what?" She asked, swallowing over the lump in her throat.  
  
"Why do you always run away from me?"  
  
"I don't ... always," Sam said.  
  
"Yes, you do," Jason said somberly. "You've been doing it for as long as I can remember."  
  
Sam sighed. "I don't know."  
  
"Is it still about the hat thing in junior high?" Jason asked, coming closer to her, so close she could smell the musky scent of his cologne mixed with the rain water permeating the air. It was a heady sensation but for once she stayed her ground.  
  
Sam shook her head. "You think I would hold onto a grudge about that for so long?"  
  
Jason smirked for a brief moment. "You tell me. It was a pretty asshole-y thing of me to do."  
  
Sam shook her head. "Yeah, yeah it was. But I got over it. It took awhile but I did."  
  
"So why keep running from me?" Jason asked. "I am so sorry I embarrassed you that day but how long can you keep punishing me for the past?"  
  
Sam sighed as she felt his warm palm come to rest on her cheek. "I'm not trying to punish you, Jason, really I'm not."  
  
"Then say you'll forgive me. Say you'll finally let me love you."  
  
Sam stiffened and pulled away from Jason no matter how warm and welcoming his touch felt. "Jason-"  
  
"Please, Sam, you know I do. You know how I feel about you and always have. You are a smart woman. You can't be that blind."  
  
"Obviously you want me only because I'm the only girl who ever had the nerve to tell you 'no'," Sam said hoarsely.  
  
"Oh is that it?" Jason said. "You think that's the whole reason, Sam? You're acting foolish. I loved you all along, from the minute I saw you walk into our homeroom so many years ago. Every dumb thing I ever did was about trying to get your attention, especially back then because I didn't know exactly how to tell you how I really felt. I still don't. But it's out there. I love you, Sam."  
  
Sam shook her head as tears burned the back of her eyes. "Aren't you seeing someone? Some blonde named Courtney?"  
  
"I was but I broke it off a few weeks ago. I knew I was lying to myself by trying to convince her and myself that I could ever love someone the way I loved you. The way I still love you."  
  
"Jason, don't-"  
  
"Why are you so scared to love me back, Sam?" Jason asked. "I want you in my life but you have to say you want that too or I'll leave you alone and won't bother you about it again."  
  
Sam couldn't speak then. Too many emotions were clogging her throat. She just turned and walked off in the rain.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Sam left Port Charles the very next day, even though Alexis asked her to stay. Sam had always run; that's what she did best. It was only in running away from her last foster home that she had ended up with the Lansings so it couldn't be all that bad, right? She kept convincing herself that not letting herself love Jason was somehow for the best.  
  
Alexis had told her in an email that Jason had enlisted in the med-service unit of the army a few days after the picnic. He had told Alexis nothing of what happened in the gazebo but Sam was sure Alexis knew that Jason was why she was running. Sam tried not to think of what she had thrown away but she was sure Jason would be better off without her flawed, contorted way of thinking and acting. She convinced herself she was okay until the day her mom called her and told her the tragic news.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Sam drove like a bat out of hell all the way to Port Charles in the rain. It always seemed to rain on days of importance for Sam. On days when she always made the wrong decision but this time, if there was just some miracle, she would try to make it right. If he would just be okay, she would stop running and toss aside her stubborn pride and tell him that she had loved him all along as well.  
  
She reached General Hospital and jumped out of her car, leaving it idling at the drop-off curb before running inside. She spotted her best friend from her youth, her kindred spirit, Robin Scorpio-Drake and ran over to her. Robin hugged her as Sam peppered her with questions. "Hey, calm down. He's in surgery. You know Leo and Patrick will take good care of him."  
  
Sam nodded. "Yeah, I know... It's just ... How did this happen?"  
  
"From what I understand the convoy he was travelling in as a doctor was attacked and he got shrapnel in his leg but he ignored it for five straight days to attend to everyone else's injuries. Finally he had to admit though that he had a blood infection - a bad one - and was flown stateside. He insisted on coming back here in case he -"  
  
Sam nodded. "Died ... Right. Isn't that just like Jason Quartermaine? Stubborn and headstrong to a fault, thinking he can save everyone."  
  
"Sam, don't be mad at him," Robin implored.  
  
"I can be and I am mad at him. If he wasn't so damn wonderful to everyone, this never would have happened. But he has to be a wonderful guy and -" Sam's voice broke off, clogged with tears. "Just make sure they save him, okay? Maybe he won't want to see me ever again but I want to see him. If he's strong enough to tell me to go away then I'll do it because I know he will be okay."  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Later Sam was sitting by herself in the waiting room when Alexis arrived. She immediately hugged a tearful Sam to her slender frame. "It's okay. He's going to be okay."  
  
Sam nodded as tears slid down her cheeks. "I know. He's headstrong so that will make him live," she said. "I - I don't get it though. Why it took him being hospitalized for me to admit I was being stubborn and finally admit to myself that I loved him and always have."  
  
"You said it, Sam, you're stubborn," Alexis said. "You were scared too. Scared because everyone else but me left you that he would too. But that's not Jason Quartermaine's way. Surely you know that now. He's a good man. He's a doctor. He heals people and -"  
  
"Hopefully he will heal himself."  
  
"I think he can with your help, Sam. Just do me a favor okay?"  
  
"Anything."  
  
"Stop running. Admit you love him and don't lose the love of your life the way I did mine."  
  
Sam nodded and embraced Alexis. Just then Robin returned and looked at Sam. "He made it through surgery. He's still a bit weak but he wants to see you."  
  
Sam took a deep breath. "Alright. I'll go see him now."  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Sam started crying anew the minute she walked into Jason's hospital room and saw the seeming million and one machines he was hooked up to. He smiled at her. "Hey, don't cry or I'll think you're crying because you're actually worried about me," he said quietly.  
  
Sam hesitated in the doorway and then moved over to him. He was pale and looked tired but his eyes were bright and directed on her and full of love for her as they always had been. She should have seen that all along.  
  
"I - I am worried about you," Sam admitted as she closed the distance between them and finally made a move to reach for his hand. Her fingers intertwined with hers as tears ran down her face.   
  
"Worried about me?" Jason said. "Don't worry. I'll be alright and then you can go back to avoiding me or hating me. Whichever works. Maybe both..."  
  
"I don't hate you, Jason," Sam said. "Just the opposite in fact. I was scared to admit it for so many reasons but honest to God, it's been you all along. It always has been."  
  
"Sam ..." Jason looked humbled by her words and also looked torn as to whether he could trust in her words. "Don't say anything you might regret later."  
  
"I won't regret it," Sam said. "What I do regret is being stubborn all this time and trying to fight what I wanted because I didn't think I deserved you."  
  
Jason squeezed her hand and then reached out and ran his thumb down her teary cheek. "You do deserve me. Maybe you deserve better actually but I can be a better man if you just let me try."  
  
"You're perfect the way you are, Jason," Sam said and grasping his hand, she slowly kissed his knuckles. "When all of this is over, if you'll still have me, I'd love to be your wife."  
  
Tears sprung now to Jason's own eyes. "You mean it? You'll actually marry me? Someone you were bound and determined to hate forever?"  
  
Sam sighed. "But I never did. Never, ever. Even when you were an insensitive jackass sometimes."  
  
Jason laughed. "I'm sorry about that, truly I am, but I assure you, Sam, it's always been you and no one else for me."  
  
Sam nodded and finally stood and crawled into bed next to him, curling up against his strong chest. "The same goes for me. You can't fight destiny, Jason. You're my home and I will always come back to you. I promise."  
  
"I love you, Sam," Jason said and for the first time ever, after all these years, he got to kiss her. That was just the first of many, many kisses of course. In another six months, Sam and Jason would be married. A year after that, they had twin girls they named Dani and Emily. And still all these years later, they are happy together. Sam was not just Samantha of Port Charles, after all. She was the Sam in Jason's heart and always would be...  
  
FINIS


End file.
